Due to a couple of different, crazy coincidences yesterday I pretended for a few hours to be an actor. For a short film I cried fake tears and played an annoyed Rock musician.

Obviously I was also wearing the iconographic outfit of an indie rocker: Sleeveless band t-shirt, tight, washed-out jeans, and worn-out “Chucks” by CONVERSE. Especially the latter belong to the standard equipment of any musician and as such are considered good etiquette in the backstage rooms and stages around the world.

Unfortunately though we also shot – authentic! authentic! – in an old run-down, moldy bar that wasn’t even remotely heated. Considering the current cold weather in Berlin (below zero Celsius!) it was a rather unpleasant stay. The cold crept through those rubber soles of the ‘Chucks’ within Nano seconds so that I had to live with the fear of my toes – trés Reinhold Messneresque – would just freeze off at any second. This immediately prompted the question: Aren’t there any boots by CONVERSE? Does it have to be the classical ‘Chuck Taylor’ even in wintertime?

The answer is being widely communicated already at the moment: No, it doesn’t have to be. There are actually boots by CONVERSE, with a thick sole, insolated, made of heavy leather and a guarantee to be cold resistant. And to make sure everyone is aware of it, the company even set up a Tumblr blog for it. Awesome! Really awesome, even!

On a less awesome note, the CONVERSE Tumblr had not reached the stylist of the movie yet. This should change now. This blog entry is a service to humanity – or rather a service to freezing amateur actors who would very much like to keep their toes.

The Berlin-based label with the original name ‘Stadtholz’ is assuring that one ‘really has a piece of nature on their nose’, when purchasing their glasses.

But does one want that?! Having a piece of nature on your nose, when it looks bad. Sustainability is great and all. But fashion is mainly about design. And that should look good.

Plus, there is nothing more annoying than labels, who are massively pining ‘sustainability’ on their flag. Most of the times it is exactly those labels, who have as much to do with sustainability as bumm-bumm-Boris with the smart usage of Twitter. Not a lot.

NEWS

Shortly after Scott Sternberg announced the end of Band of Outsiders, Kris Van Assche has also informed the public, that the label, which also carries his name, is not going to be continued.

Kris Van Assche will mainly concentrate on his work for DIOR HOMME. The Belgian designer announced the end of his label through a hand-written letter which he gave to his business partners and the press.

‘Times are tough for independent labels.’, Van Assche said to WWD. ‘This wonderful adventure has reached a point where I feel the need to take a break and some distance to better think about how to develop my brand in the future.’

LOOKS

Getting Bananas ¿+’!

Before, while and after our Getting Bananas ¿+’! shooting we have eaten so much fruit, that we will not have to visit any doctors until we have our midlife crisis (ca. 2040).

If we had put all the fruits that were lying around in a XXXXL-mixer we could have easily filled a whirlpool with a wonderful smoothie. That is what us two fruties will do at our next fruit production, which will follow soon for sure.

We are wearing Timberland from head to toe, with that, to complete the look: stylish banana sunglasses & a lemon mouthpiece. You can shop the looks, here.

SPECIAL

Next big Thing: Grace Wales Bonner

The stylist and collector David Casavant started very early, in a visionary way, to purchase RAF SIMONS and HELMUT LANG pieces.

His collection is so impressive that even Kanye West, according to rumours, had a boner when he walked through the archive of Casavant in New York. Casavant has an incredible instinct for the potential of fashion designers.

Currently, Casavant is buying pieces by CRAIG GREEN and, remarkably, by GRACE WALES BONNER. Because Bonner only created two collections, but already now she is traded with value.

Bonner is one the way to write fashion-history. Different medias as Dazed & Confused, Another Mag, DIS or 032c have recently reported about Bonner in an euphoric way. And even a museum – the V&A – have honoured the young designer.

The dignified Victoria & Albert Museum showed a video instillation, out of four pieces, which showed Bonner’s previous work, during the exhibition Fashion Motion.

Bonner’s fame started with her BA graduate collection. The Jamaican-English fashion designer studied – as many important designers – at the Central Saint Martins College. With one collection, where Bonner combined European luxury with the 1970s in Nigeria, she won the prestigious L’Oréal Professional Talent Award.

Her graduation-colelction presented nearly only West-African models. They wore luscious jewellery, flare trousers with a high waist, shortly cut mohair-jackets and tailored denim pieces. Bonner wanted to show a different side of black culture – away from the common street wear-culture.

Neither with the cast nor the topic of the collection, Bonner tried to set an anti-racist statement. It was much more about questioning the identity of the ‘black men’. To show a different, feminine side, the opposite of the over the top masculine cliche.

Her sources of inspirations are artists like Kerry James Marshall, the movie maker Melvin Van Peebles and the heroes of the Blaxploitation movies.

Blaxploitation is an US-american film genre, which had his peak in the 1970s. The term is a hybrid between black, and exploitation.

Her second collection, in which Bonner continued the topic of her graduation-collection, was presented as an installation at the platform for young, British talents: Fashion East.

Similar to Craig Green, Bonner creates conceptual fashion. Unique in style and history. She is dealing with sexual and cultural identity in a very refreshing way.

VIDEO

FASHION SHOWS

HOOD BY AIR presented their new collection ‘Daddy’ in a cellar-like setting at the Wall Street, the centrum of finance.

The mastermind behind HBA, Shayne Oliver, showed classics from the world of fashion, like button-down shirts, sweaters and polo t-shirts in the typical unisex Hood by Air Silhouette. Therefore it came to an hybrid between polo shirt and dress. Or camel coat and tank top.

The models wore locks in-front of their mouths and tights over their heads, like burglars. The soundtrack of the show, total freedom, was ended drastically, followed by jazz, underlined with the statement of the Empire:

“I wanna show you a faggot really can run this company”.

It becomes obvious how appreciated HBA is also in the art-world, when looking at the guests who attended the show, for example Klaus Biesenbach and Grace Coddington.

It seems that HBA, even after the diss by their once supporter A$AP ROCKY, is still very hip.